I took her to see Dr. Heald and he recommended a endoscopy/colonoscopy. The result of that was a positive diagnosis of IBD. He recommended a 3 phase treatment. First, an anti inflammatory steroid. I had serious concerns about the long term use of Prednisone so I asked him if there were any alternatives and he told me about a drug called Budesonide. It is a "topical" steroid that stays in the GI tract thus you do not see the side effects that you do with Prednisone. He has been using it for several years now and has seen according to him "as good if not better results" than on Prednisone. The upside of Budesonide is the lack of side effects and the downside is that it is more expensive and you have to get it from a special pharmacy because it has to be specially compounded into a treat. His second phase was an antibiotic to get rid of the bad bacteria in the digestive tract. He put her on 1/8 tsp of Tylan with her meals... it is a powder that you just sprinkle on. The final phase was to put her on different food. We tried Hill's Z/D first but it didn't really agree with her. Also, my vet has seen many cases of bloat in dogs who eat Z/D so we switched her to IVD Venison and Potato and she really likes it and has done very well on it.

Jazz was diagnosed in February of 2001. She is doing very well now. At the end of March, we made it through our first flyball tournament in a long time with out having to pull out due to diarrhea and Jazz raced to her FMCh title at that tournament. She seems to be feeling very well.

Budesonide is a new form of treatment for IBD dogs. It has been used in humans with great results. I would recommend that people ask their vet about its use. It may not be for everyone but Jazz seems to be doing very well on it and living a normal dog's life on it.